by TJ Muir
Jedda paused, browsing through his memory. “I don’t remember anything about most of them. Not specific. But he and So’Har Matra. There’s some feud there.”
“So, if I wanted to move goods, such as timber, from the mountains, how might I go about it?”
Jedda thought, examining the map the way he might a game board- looking carefully at all the pieces, and options.
“I think most people would upset Matra, insult him publicly, in front of Da’Har Pavan, making it understood that it was because they considered Da’Har Pavan superior and on the correct side of the quarrel.”
Kirrin nodded, about to praise Jedda.
“But that han’t what I’d do. Da’har Pavan might have a canal going through his land. But his friendship and loyalty will never last. I’d go to So’Har Matra, make an ally out of him. A So’Har, they have ambitions and need friends. Matra has a river going through his land if the roadway doesn’t serve. Or, I’d convince him to build up a canal.”
“But that would anger and alienate the Da’Har,” Kirrin counter-argued.
Jedda shrugged, considering that a bonus, in this ‘game.’
Kirrin’s eyes narrowed, studying Jedda, a new regard building.
“You understand this game better than many who have played it their entire lives. And, with a perspective that is singular. I believe you understand politics very well, very well indeed.”
Jedda blinked in response. He wasn’t sure what he had just done or said. But he knew Kirrin was pleased, and for now, that was enough for him. Where he had respect and admiration for Karrahk, he felt something close to affection for Kirrin, something like what he felt for Turner, the shopkeeper. Someone he could trust not to hurt him, and not laugh at his questions.
One day, in one of the galleries, a small group of young women was loitering nearby, chatting among themselves. They all looked to be older than Jedda, but only slightly. Jedda recognized two of them, from his nosing about. So’Har Leanna and So’Har Findal. He turned away from them to ask Kirrin a question, lest he stare.
“What is this thing?” he asked, turning.
Kirrin had vanished, so he was talking to himself, and the girls were giggling at him.
Instinct kicked in and he recovered himself. He was not poor homeless Jedda any longer. He was Jay, worthy enough to engage in conversation. He blushed a bit more, bowing slightly in their direction, smiling. “I seem to have misplaced my companion, which is exceptionally unfortunate because I know nothing about this sculpture. Have any of you seen him?”
They all shook their heads. “A pity,” Jedda replied. “In that case, can any of you educate me about these pieces of art?”
That was the only icebreaker Jedda needed. The girls swarmed in his direction.
“I’m Leanna.”
“Findal.”
“Minna.”
“Linna.”
The names came at him with the speed of arrows. Jedda caught the last two, only because the girls looked like twins.
“You have the most beautiful hair. I wish I could get my hair to be wavy and curly like that,” one of them said. Leanna?
“And look at those eyes,” from another. “The most gorgeous green I ever saw.”
“Umm… thank you,” Jedda said, feeling overwhelmed by all of the attention. The fact that these were girls huddling around him made it that much harder.
“We don’t really care about any of this,” one of the twins said, waving a hand toward the sculpture.. “But if we tell our parents we are going to the archives, they think we are doing something educational.”
“It’s terribly wicked of us, I know. But it is better than sitting at home with tutors and chaperones that watch over us like hawks,” said twin two, rolling her eyes.
Their comments and very personal observations made him blush. But that only made them laugh.
“You are the most adorable man we have seen, and you are perfect when you blush,” twin-one said.
He could feel the heat on his cheeks and resisted the urge to cover them with his hands.
“Look, you’ve scared the poor man,” one of the girls said. Findal, maybe? “We have seen you here before, around the archives. And we have been wondering who you might be. No one knew who you are or recognized you.”
“Oh. I’m not exactly from around here.” In his mind, Jedda meant the finer areas of the city, but he knew they would assume he was from further away. “My name is Jay,” he added, worried they might ask where he was from. “I really do like the archives, but I love the chance encounters with such as yourselves.” He bowed slightly as he said this, a bit of flourish, extending his hand. “I am most honored to make your acquaintances.”
He was saved from further embarrassment by one of the twins, who gasped suddenly. “Just look over there,” she said in a whispered hiss. She grabbed twin-two as she spoke, pointing her sister in the direction to look. “It’s that Raifen fellow. Look who he’s with now. He’s shameful.”
“He does like his women,” twin-two agreed.
Jedda looked along with the girls. He remembered Raifen and was curious what the man was up to. Raifen was paying very close attention to someone. He didn’t recognize the woman, but he could tell that her hair was lighter than Diya’s. He wasn’t sure why that surprised him. Raifen’s relationship with Diya had been a long while ago. He wondered what Diya was up to, but he got distracted by one of the twins.
“Come on. Let’s go before he tries to come over here.”
With that group understanding, they headed off across the quad as a single unit, drawing Jedda along with them.
Before they had gotten halfway across the quad, the girls spotted a larger group of friends.
Leanna squealed, “Oh my, that’s Yaran with Taj, isn’t it?”
Findal sighed. “Could you be any more obvious that you have a thing for Taj?”
“I think Taj is the only one who doesn’t know at this point,” twin-one said. “And I’ll take Yaran off your hands if that will give you half a chance.”
“Shhhh,” she said, swatting twin-one’s arm. “Here they come. Don’t say anything.”
There were more names than Jedda could keep straight. The only reason he remembered the two men was because they were very clearly pointed out in advance.
Yaran was the son of a very wealthy merchant. Evidently, the wealth made up for his not being from a So’har. On the other hand Taj was the son and heir of a Da’har, making him an absolute prize that all the girls competed to obtain.
The small cadre of girls got swept up in the larger herd, carrying Jedda along with them.
Leanna and Findal kept up a stream of chatter. Jedda hovered closer to them because he felt like he knew them a little bit better. It helped that he could tell them apart.
“Oh, by the way,” Findal said as they entered into one of the private gardens not too far from the archives, “that piece of art you were looking at?” Jedda stopped for a moment, as his brain caught up with the sudden jump in the conversation.
“Did you know something about it?” Jedda asked, more out of a sense of being polite than being interested now.
“Oh, Breshan no! But that girl over there,” she said pointing discreetly, “Her mother is the one that commissioned the thing. What an ugly sea cow she is, too. Takes after her mother.”
Twin-two caught up with them and chimed in, “She only commissions the art so that she can keep the artist in residence. That affair has been going on for years now.”
“I heard that started as she and the Da’har’s wife got into this ridiculous ongoing challenge over who was more generous in sponsoring the local artists.”
Jedda didn’t get a chance to hear the rest of that little bit of local history and gossip.
“Hello all!” A voice piped up from behind them. An arm over both Leanna’s and Findal’s shoulders, hugging them with a familiarity that left Jedda feeling a little uncomfortable. That discomfort grew, as a kiss was planted first
on Leanna’s cheek, and then he turned his head and repeated that with Findal.
Jedda wasn’t sure if they were related, or maybe some bizarre love-triangle was going on between them.
“And who is our new friend?” he asked, looking Jedda up and down.
“Trey, you’re impossible,” Leanna said as she gave him a playful shove, sending him into Findal’s arms, as she put up an arm to help catch his balance as well as her own. But Jedda noticed that Findal was in no hurry to disengage.
Trey just laughed. “That’s why you all love me, though.”
“Very true.”
“Come,” he said. “Introduce me to my competition.”
Findal rolled her eyes, stepping out from under Trey’s arm.
“This is Jay. Jay, Trey.”
“We rhyme,” Trey said with delight. He extended a hand, and clapped Jedda on the shoulder with his free hand. “I just had an order of northern cider shipped in, as well as some of the northern harvest of wine. This is a very good year. The apples were crisp and sweet, and this cider will put my brother on his backside.”
“Right where the we want him,” twin-one whispered, to general merriment.
Trey laughed with the others. “I don’t think Taj would complain about that. But I’m not sure he’s interested. You’ll have your work cut out for you.”
“Where is the party going to be?” Leanna asked.
Trey shrugged and hollered over their heads to one of the other fellows. “Hey, Yaran. Your townhouse still open? Or did you get kicked out after the last party?”
Yaran’s head popped up. “New place. Above the terraces,” came the shouted reply, as Yaran came closer to the group. “Fourth terrace 23North.”
“Let’s go meet the neighbors,” Trey said. “I’ll have crates of wine and cider delivered there.” Then he turned to Jedda and gripped him by the shoulder.
Jedda wasn’t sure what was expected of him. But Trey was light and funny and easy to like, so Jedda smiled at him.
“You must come along,” Trey said with finality. “Have you had northern cider? All the rage. Or it will be. A friend at school introduced me to it. I’ve woken up on many a floor afterward,” he laughed. “But that is another story.”
“How about that drunken game of polarity?” Leanna asked.
“Oh, that was wicked. We must do that again. Maybe Yaran’s new place has space for a ball court.”
“You going to see how many windows you can break this time?”
Trey laughed. “That was wicked,” he said, before continuing his resume of drunken antics. “Oh, let me tell you about the time I was drunk on cider and had the great idea to swim across the harbor…”
The invitations started coming. There was a picnic on the terraced gardens, a boat ride in the harbor. And he found himself invited to informal house parties, a bit like picnics, only at night, and indoors.
Over the next few spans, Jedda's collection of social friends grew. Most were the children of merchants, a couple of So'har. They took to him with ease, drawn in by his exotic looks and his Faenyr novelty. Jedda suspected that his aura of mystery built up their interest. Although he also imagined that they liked that he listened more than he spoke, which gave them more time to talk about themselves.
A few of them had their own villas or apartments within the city. The others made good use of the unchaperoned space. The night parties also had more alcohol than the daytime picnics in the park. Wine and hard cider and ale flowed. After his first party, where he spewed up most of what he drank, he learned to be careful with the wine.
Jedda kept his own cottage secret. Having been to a few parties now, he could see how Yaran managed to get himself evicted from his last residence. And Yaran’s family had money. Jedda didn’t know if money or titles were more important. But in his own case, it didn’t matter, because he had neither. He didn’t think that getting kicked out of the cottage would impress Karrahk. Unless Karrahk actually owned the cottage. Jedda wasn’t sure and wasn’t about to find out the hard way.
Chapter Six
Kirrin continued to teach Jedda about life and the world. Their best resource was the archives. Jedda noticed that Kirrin was accorded great respect wherever they went. Anything he requested was presented. Before long, he and Jedda were allowed to roam through the vast buildings unchallenged and often spent long days studying in its spacious halls.
“So what is the difference between So’Har and Da’Har?” Jedda asked, one day, curious. He had been following a long-standing feud between some of his friends, and another Da’Har.
“Well, that’s difficult to answer if you just look at Tatak Rhe,” Kirrin said, taking down a roll of maps. Jedda liked maps. Maps helped him to see the world.
Kirrin unfurled a map of all Chanmyr land- from the eastern Mountains, the northern plateaus, all the way to the Western coasts.
“These lines,” Kirrin explained, pointing out features on the map. “They show different regions. Similar to Tatak Rhe. Tatak Rhe is a region. But outside of Tatak Rhe, a traditional, older, structure remains.”
Jedda sighed. He was still trying to wrap his head around the way power worked in Tatak Rhe and here Kirrin was explaining that it was completely different elsewhere.
Many times, Kirrin was either called away abruptly, or never came at all, but Jedda, curious about how water moved around the city, delved into the archives alone. He pored over maps that showed the parks and fountains in the city. His curiosity wandered from his city into other areas. He would find one bit of information that led him hopping through lily pads of random topics. He marveled at how much larger his world had become in just a few years. The tunnels and canals felt very far away. He spent several months poring through everything--vast storage houses of information. History, music, art, science, engineering, even magical-seeming contraptions called fliers that carried people through the air. Anything he wanted to learn was at his fingers. There were so many things that he could figure out by looking at pictures and models. Finding information became easier, as his literacy improved. Jedda wasn’t asking Kirrin a hundred questions every day, a change Kirrin seemed happy about.
Fliers, in particular, captured his interest. After discovering an engaging book in the archives--on the different functions fliers held in various societies--he spent long hours of the day reading, cursing his own slowness at the new activity.
After one long day nestled in the bowels of the largest of the buildings, he headed back outside, trying to spot one of the fliers that he had been reading so much about. He was in luck. When he looked up, he could see a man nested between a giant pair of wings. Red silk stretched out across the sky, brighter than the brightest flowers in the parks. Jedda watched as the flier slid through the air as easily as the birds, admiring the easy grace--
A crash jolted his thoughts--and body--and he jerked, struggling to regain his balance and tripped heavily over another struggling body and knocked them down onto the pavement again. He recovered himself and turned to the figure on the ground.
“I’m so very sorry. I should have been paying attention to where I was going,” he said, embarrassed.
His horror grew as he recognized his victim.
Dark hair with glowing auburn highlights and sharp blue-gray eyes.
Clear skin and a flashing smart smile.
So’Har Diya.
He froze where he stood, arm extended to assist her back up. She smiled graciously, holding onto his hand as she came back to her feet. She looked at him, blinking for a moment before speaking. “You look so familiar. Have we met?”
Jedda felt the heat in his face and knew he was beet red. He was terrified that she might possibly remember him from his days spying. She might have gotten the wrong impression.
It took a moment for Jedda to find his voice. “My name is Jay,” he said, bowing slightly. And he used the extra moment to compose himself. Deep breath.
Diya smiled, tilting her head. “Ah, yes. I remember the name
- so unusual for being plain. I believe I heard about a certain party, from my cousin, So’Har Jomar,” she said, clarifying herself. “I hear you were fond of the wine. Strange, how we have never met, before now. A happy accident,” she added.
Jedda’s heart was racing. He was relieved that was the only connection she had made. It wasn’t entirely a coincidence that their paths hadn’t crossed. Jedda had gone to great lengths to avoid Diya socially, and he had been discreet and clever at it.
“Yes. Jomar,” Jedda added. “And happy accident indeed,” Jedda agreed, still holding her hand, arm stiffly out from his body. He had found his voice but was still waiting for his muscles to unfreeze.
She smiled at him, and he smiled back, feeling stupid and exposed.
“Perhaps you can escort me over to the bench, where I can sit for a moment?” She suggested, nudging him into motion alongside her.
“Oh--yes--Of course” Jedda released her hand, realized she was expecting him to escort her and snatched it up again, fumbling himself into the proper position.
He seated her delicately on a bench in the public gardens, near the swans upon the pond. She detangled herself neatly and rubbed her palms quickly on her dress.
Jedda became painfully aware of how sweaty his palms were, and felt even more foolish. He wondered if he should leave.
“Do you like swans? Or ducks? Or perhaps you prefer fish?” She asked, throwing him off his guard. She was looking towards a small pond off to the side.
“I don’t know,” he stammered. “I’ve never given it much thought. Do you mean, do I like them, to eat?”
“No,” she laughed, sincerely amused by his baffled honesty. “As creatures. What do you think of them?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever thought of them,” he admitted.
“Did you know that ducks fly in groups and take turns in the lead? Being the leader is more tiring, and so no one bird holds the position over-long,” she explained. “I like swans,” she conceded. “I think there is something romantic in the idea that they mate for life, that they mourn the loss of their partner.”